Announcement UU Suspect Process Round 18 - you are my sunshine - np: Ninetales

[vivalospride]

:ninetales:

shoutout my son’s favorite song
​

After much deliberation in council, out of council, on smogon, on discord, in surveys. Ninetales is being suspected in SV UU!

During World Cup and UU Open, sun saw a massive upswing in usage. It was dominant, with some showings between strong players being a curb stomp in the favor of the sun user. Sun was being brought multiple times in bo3s, and world cup was covered in sun. A majority of these suns were similar, having a baseline of Ninetales + Slither Wing + Donphan/Excadrill, but there was room for creativity with the several options for Chlorophyll breakers, and other extremely potent heavy hitters like Arcanine-Hisui raising the floor to a level beyond satisfactory. Point is, the baseline of sun was already strong, and it had multiple options that gave you different hurdles to jump over in battle respectively.

Post World Cup, tiering shifts happened, giving us Heatran and Tyranitar. On top of that, a suspect test took place targeting Manaphy. Heatran and Tyranitar effect sun’s strength in relatively straight forward manners. Heatran has the ability Flash Fire and on top of that, a sun boosted Magma Storm is extremely threatening for any sun team. Tyranitar resets the weather with Sandstorm. Manaphy indirectly has some impact on sun’s strength as well, as its existence severely punished common BO frameworks, especially ones centered around Slowking and Lokix, as it happily used Slowking as fodder and Lokix did not reliably revenge kill it due to its solid bulk, typing, and obviously the assumption that veil is up.

These things add up to seemingly, making the sun debate significantly more complex, as the majority of the more recently outspoken individuals lean in favor of sun not being specifically problematic or unhealthy, primarily due to the aforementioned recent changes to the tier. It’s arguable that the meta has settled with sun in it, with there being plenty of accessible outs in the builder and in battle with competent teams. It’s also argued that the margins for error are far too small, and this leads to unhealthy dynamics in and out of battle.

With all that said, Ninetales is the primary target of this suspect for the over-arching archetype of sun. Reason being, it has gotten outspoken support of course, but also there is a lack of precedence when it comes to sun action in the tier. This makes it less rational to jump to an extreme countermeasure/nuking of the archetype (ie Heat Rock, Drought, etc). Ninetales also, is the primary sun setter of the archetype by a wide margin, with many people taking note of how unreliable its counterpart Torkoal is as a pokemon outside of its ability to simply exist.

Torkoal compresses roles as a rock setter and (kind of) hazard remover, but aside from that it is more or less a sitting duck, with no meaningful moves to click to intimidate anything from coming straight into it and abusing it as fodder. This often creates a vortex, where you throw it in simply for the sake of setting sun, and finding yourself in the same conundrum over and over again, and if the opposing team has anything that sets weather of their own, Torkoal is often on the losing side of that war because of how much lower quality of a stand alone pokemon it is in comparison to the opposing weather setter.

Thus giving reason to believe that if sun is broken or unhealthy, Ninetales being banned is enough of a nerf to be satisfactory. If this does not end up being the case, it opens up a new discussion for further action. Regardless, this decision was made with the future and present in mind.

There is a whole thread detailing people’s opinion on this archetype and suspecting it. If you didn’t speak up there, speak up here. Get reqs, and vote for what you believe in. Happy laddering comrades

NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING THE NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!

The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:

• Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in UU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played UU before the test, full stop.)
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• Double check that you're listed as a voter HERE! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact myself or a member of staff.
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me/Reina or post here!

The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2900.

Suspect will end September 6th @ 11:59pm GMT -4

 

[t44Torkoal]

A ninetales suspect was NOT on my bingo card this year

 

[LBN]

Reqs first blood baby. Anyways sun is fucking stupid. You know all those complaints where people talk about never encountering the suspected threat in question so they can't make an opinion? Yeah well I have the opposite. Of the 38 games I played, easily over half were sun. After around the 15 game mark I just started loading an agressive sun CT and stopped engaging in good faith because hippowdon is my god and savior.

As for sun itself, I think its p stupid. I won't pretend like I didn't go for reqs because I think sun is dumb in RU or anything, but I think its busted here too. Ttar and heatran helped, that is true. But I also think its incredibly obnoxious to cover sun's laundry list of threats and it has a ton of flexability in what it wants to load out with. Just on this 38 game run I fought Weather Ball Latios, Venu, H-Lilli, Scovillain, H-RK9, Slither and Heatran itself. Even beyond this list, there's more I can easily see working and I think the reach sun has to cover its faults on any given comp is greater than what everybody else can whip out to deal with it all. It's worth noting that shit like Hippo or Talon or w/e are straight trash in my eyes, but I feel compelled to load them purely to curb down sun on some teamcomps because stuff like Latios/Ttar on their own can't hold up.

I do not like current UU right now and I think getting sun limited would go a long way to making it better.

Side tangent, I also have to say I heavily dislike this OP. "This likely won't get addressed again." Why would you even type that out as if Sun isn't still hotly contested even if Ninetales survives this? OP in general is just kinda lazily written. I dunno who writes these OPs behind the scenes because I personally have written all the recent RU ones, but whoever wrote this one shouldn't be writing them again. How'd this one get greenlit?
(They fixed it, good on them)

Ban.

 

[samohi0]

got reqs second and I can't disagree with the other guy more emphatically, I think sun is a decent option but there are so many ways to play around it that anytime I lost to sun I felt it was more a skill issue than an issue with sun.

I think Ninetales is a poor scapegoat and I think the only reason it's getting tested is because no sun abuser is particularly strong. If I was to run sun I wouldn't even use ninetales because Its tyranitar fodder torkoal can threaten with bp but even burned a t-tar destroys ninetales. in no sun game was I worried about ninetales or the value it provided.

im new to this tier and honestly the only reason I got reqs was because of how proud I was of the first team I ever built being successful. and at no point during building or using a team I made while knowing very little about the meta game was I ever worried about sun. I don't think any of its abusers are noticeably strong, and I think as the metagame becomes more t-tar influenced ninetales won't even be the preferred sun setter.

im pretty tired so my rambling might be hard to follow but basically DNB and I honestly don't even know why this needs a test

 

[mintwinter]

The points I made here in favour of action here still stand imo, though it's a bit long so i'll summarise my main gripes with sun. Sun is restrictive on the builder as its sweepers are hard to cover. This is exacerbated by sun being fairly customisable; it can use its flex slots to give itself a better matchup against conk/latios/harc etc depending on what you expect to face. This allows it to fish for mus to an even greater degree, which imo reduces skill expression. Sun also takes away agency from the opposing player through its frequent use of slow pivots paired with a strong breaker like harc. The pressure sun can exert makes it much harder for the opponent to make plays a lot of the time. While I initially preferred action against heat rock (and later drought) I think a ninetales ban would be a step in the right direction. It'd weaken sun and make it easier to account for, which makes the tier less fishy and frees up space in the builder for more innovation

 

[scald spamm]

did reqs
i guess everyone is loaded with info on this suspect so why would i write a paragraph explaining why :ninetales: should be banned

also congrats to my friend xDarkcrafterHDx who did reqs on his main (he played uu first time in gen9 lmao still has better W/L than most of yall)

enjoy this replay where i haxxed my way through last match:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9uu-2670242296

(also who tf disabled formatting ur bald)

 

[Bobbybobobnub]

Got reqs only laddering with psy terrain as i am the sole psy terrain soldier. Ty HisuiHeat for the team, conkeldurr is goated.

Before I begin, I just want to say LBN i love you bro, but unfortunately, I strongly disagree with your opinions on this topic. During my games to achieve 2900 COIL, only about an eighth of the teams I encountered were sun. On the other hand, I saw Tyranitar or Heatran in almost every team that I faced, who many believe to be big sun counters. Teams without those two mons had other ways to deal with sun, including trace gardevoir, and politoed to wage their own weather wars.

I've read thru the arguments presented within the sun discussion thread, and I'd also like to address a few of those. Some players believed that Slither Wing should not be suspected due to its potential versability, compared to Ninetales, whose only role/viable set is to set the sun for the team. However, in the games that I played, every single Slither Wing I faced was either used on veil or sun. Not too much versability there. I know defensive Slither Wing can be used with wisp and morning sun, but I did not face any during laddering. I also saw some claiming that Tyranitar is not a counter/check to sun, because it can be punished by a Slither Wing double. I mean... thats how showdown works??? You as the ttar player can also predict their double... It's literally a fundamental aspect of the competitive metagame, and I don't understand how its being used as an argument as to why sun is supposedly broken.

Let's also not forget to address the opinions from lower tiers, as banning Ninetales would cause it to become unusable in lower tiers as well. I'm hoping there won't be another situation like in OU with the tera blast ban, that ultimately limits the creativity and teambuilding potential in lower tiers. I'd like to specifically address the RU tier, as it is currently the only tier with access to drought and Ninetales. The RU tier also had a very similar discussion about sun within the metagame just a few weeks ago. Despite some claiming that sun in RU is broken and needs to be banned (cough cough NAEM), by my understanding of the recent commmunity surveys, it's revealed that Ninetales was not found to be the main problem (please correct me if I'm wrong), but rather heat rock. In fact, much of the community finds the current RU metagame to be satisfactory, and discourage an action against sun. As I'm coming from an RU perspective, I find many particular connections between RU sun teams and UU sun teams. Yes there are stronger abusers in UU, ie Harc, Hilligant, Slither, but there are also more potent defensive walls that can do better into these stronger abusers, as well as potent attackers that can put immense pressure on sun teams (lokix for example).

To conclude, I find that sun is not that big of a problem within the current UU metagame. I'm hoping someone with more experience can reinforce some of my claims/arguments, but I will be voting DNB. (if ninetales gets banned it will break Yourwelcomethanku 's heart and mine :( )

 

[Davis]

got reqs using old teams, literally faced sun maybe twice (one of the two was using torkoal, not even ninetales) in 40+ games. idk how people think ninetales should be banned, the counterplay exists in the tier, use it.

DNB

 

[Yourwelcomethanku]

I started playing UU after Tyranitar and Heatran dropped and I do like this tier quite a bit. Personally, I have two issues with suspecting Ninetales. One, I don't think it's a solution and two I personally don't think sun needs to be neutered or banned. If Ninetales gets banned, people can just use Torkoal. Now, Torkoal is generally considered worse but my question is, is banning Ninetales for its Healing Wish, Encore, and speed really addressing the core issues that people have with sun? The main issue that the people who want it banned seem to have is the power of Slither Wing, Harc, and Venusaur under sun. Banning Ninetales simply does not make these things go away and If I asked someone which they think is more of a problem, I think they would answer with the latter. Some sun teams already use Torkoal and it has the great benefit of not letting Tyranitar in freely at all. These teams would be totally unaffected by a Ninetales ban. I think if sun were truly problematic then banning Heat Rock or Drought would make the most sense by far. I am yet to be convinced of two things, that sun is broken, and if it was, are Ninetales's tools really the core issue with sun?

As for the beneficiaries of sun themselves, mainly Venusaur, Harc, and Slither Wing. I don't think the first is really much of a problem at all. Venusaur needs a Growth boost to OHKO a lot of the tier and it is possible to pressure Venusaur and prevent it from getting the boost or at least damage it if it does. Even if it does boost, there are still Pokemon that can take a hit from Venusaur like Mandibuzz and Heatran if you terastallize it or have Air Balloon. I think Harc and Slither Wing are the closest things to problems that sun has, and more specifically the latter. They can run different sets on sun but I think the most potent are Choice Scarf for both and also Choice Band for Harc. Now, if Harc or Slither is scarfed, it will not quite have the power to OHKO Fire resists like Latios and Hydreigon and if they are not Scarfed then outspeeding them can become viable counterplay. Now, Slither Wing can also do Flame Charge things to remedy its speed and it's a very potent set but such a set exists even outside of sun and you do need counterplay to it regardless of sun. I think Flame Charge Slither Wing is a bit unhealthy and I would not mind if Slither Wing did end up leaving the tier but I would not ban it either personally as it has coverage issues and can be dealt with via terastallization, priority, and faster scarfers.

Many Pokemon can be used to check sun in some capacity. Latios, Tyranitar, Heatran, Hydreigon, Hippowdon, Skeledirge, Talonflame, Toxapex, Tera Dragon or Water on bulky Pokemon, priority, Gardevoir and probably other options I'm missing are all counterplay to sun in some capacity. There are a lot of good Pokemon in the tier that you would already be using that will naturally check something that sun uses. Latios and Hydreigon tend to be difficult for sun teams to switch into and answer. Tyranitar, Heatran, Hippowdon, and Skeledirge can help deal with the sun Pokemon. Talonflame checks Slither Wing well, Toxapex can slow down the sun sweepers and scout strong attacks. and if you really need another fire resist on your team terastallization gives an easy highly flexible way to make anything a Fire resist. I honestly don't think sun teams are even particularly good in UU given how they struggle with a lot of common Pokemon.

Tldr, I think the tier has enough tools for sun and that banning Ninetales does not address the core problems that people have with it.

 

[samohi0]

When I look at ninetales I see

252+ Atk Choice Band Tinted Lens Tera Bug Lokix First Impression vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ninetales: 346-408 (98.8 - 116.5%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band burned Tyranitar Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ninetales: 348-411 (99.4 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (guaranteed OHKO after sandstorm damage)


Ninetales and torkoal both eat shit and die I think If you ban ninetales the other sun setter will just take its place. Whatever niche one has over the other is secondary to the fact they are both just bad mons that exist to set sun.

I don’t think sun is broken by any means, but if it was banning ninetales seems like the laziest option to fix it.

 

[s moNino]

Ninetales is the face of the Sun archetype, overcoming Torkoal as the best setter in this rather offensive archetype. Even though Torkoal seems like the better one due to much higher physical bulk and broader utility in Stealth Rock, Rapid Spin and burns from Will-O Wisp and Lava Plume, Ninetales is better due to some other stuff
- Its speed stat is significantly higher, at 100, outpacing some threats that could otherwise KO it like Excadrill, H-Arcanine, Rotom-W or Mamoswine
- Overheat is an absolute nuke. Even if coming from a Pokémon with 81 base special attack and that doesn't invest in that stat, under sun it's really strong, being an actual threat
- Scorching Sands feels better coming from this Pokémon's higher speed, being able to catch off guard a H-Arcanine or a Heatran coming in, and dealing a clean 2HKO
- Will-O Wisp lets Ninetales nullify many physical attackers, like Donphan, Excadrill, Lokix, Scizor, Tyranitar, etc, giving more free entrances to the abusers that could otherwise be damaged hugely by physical attacks
- Encore is such a clean button to click vs set up mons or hazard stackers, letting in one of the abusers
- Healing Wish is genuinely appreciated, mostly by the sun mons that don't run Heavy-Duty Boots or that get chipped by stuff like Rocky Helmet or recoil from Flare Blitz

The sun abusers much rather appreciate the utility Ninetales gives rather than Torkoal's, being able to keep the momentum quite easily thanks to both its speed and defensive utility

The primary sun abusers, as already mentioned, appreciate more Ninetale's support than Torkoal's
- H-Arcanine usually runs either Choice Band or Choice Scarf on sun teams, using the sun to its advantage in order to power up its already huge Flare Blitz damage. Thanks to Ninetales, it doesn't have to worry getting too chipped by Stealth Rocks, Spikes or Rocky Helmet, since, afterwards, just a Healing Wish will be enough to get it back to full HP. Additionally, using Ninetales as a surprise check to physically defensive Heatran also enables H-Arcanine even more
- Heatran in sun takes its already strong qualities to another level. In addition to getting one-turn Solar Beam, a really appreciated coverage, its Magma Storm is powered up, and incoming Water-type attacks are reduced. Ninetales' Healing Wish also makes Heatran feel even bulkier thanks to that second life
- Slither Wing benefits hugely from sun. Apart of the Protosynthesis boost, a powered up Flare Blitz also lets it break more cleanly. Its set variety is also significant: Choice Band, Choice Scarf, Assault Vest, Life Orb or Heavy-Duty Boots sets turn Slither Wing into an offensive monster with some really appreciated defensive utility for sun teams too, which goes even further with Healing Wish and burn spreading from Ninetales
- Sandy Shocks gets some help from sun as well, letting it get a boost to either its Speed or its SpAtk stat, making it surprisingly threatening, in addition to giving the archetype hazards and Volt Switch
- Venusaur is the biggest benefactor of sun being active. It turns it into an incredible threat, able to break through both the fattest and the most offensive structures thanks to its doubled speed thanks to Clorophyll and to its increased damage thanks to boosted Growth and Fire-type Weather Ball. That, in addition to Earth Power, Sludge Bomb or Giga Drain, makes Venusaur hit almost everything, and lets it quite easily run over teams. Additionally, having physical attackers more controlled with Ninetale's burns and the option of Healing Wish makes the ramping feel harder
- H-Lilligant is also a notable sun abuser, able to break with its dual STAB of Close Combat and Solar Blade, accompanied by Triple Axel, Poison Jab or Weather Ball for coverage options. In addition to those strong moves, Lilligant can amplify its damage with either Swords Dance or Victory Dance, the latter one letting it outpace everything even out of sun

Ninetales' support lets this really big threats have more options to sweep through teams

Secondary abusers of sun also are really helped by Ninetales
- Latios gets Fire-type coverage under sun, letting it hit key targets such as Tinkaton or Excadrill. Also, Ninetales' burns help Calm Mind variants, and Healing Wish lets Choice Specs sets pivot around more lightly
- Thundurus-T is similar in the sense that it likes sun mostly just for the Fire-type coverage, even if not so common in the archetype
- Excadrill excells in sun teams thanks to the damage mitigation of Water-type attacks, and thanks to its defensive utility. Hazard removal is also huge in this archetype, and Excadrill is the number one on that job
- Donphan is basically the same. Rapid Spin user that likes the Water-type damage mitigation. The different defensive profile is sometimes more appreciated, in addition to having Knock Off when Excadrill doesn't

All these Pokémon are turned into very huge threats thanks to Ninetales. Torkoal teams don't have the agility or the offensive momentum that Ninetales gives


With all that being said, my vote in this suspect is:
BAN

 

[scald spamm]

I started playing UU after Tyranitar and Heatran dropped and I do like this tier quite a bit. Personally, I have two issues with suspecting Ninetales. One, I don't think it's a solution and two I personally don't think sun needs to be neutered or banned. If Ninetales gets banned, people can just use Torkoal. Now, Torkoal is generally considered worse but my question is, is banning Ninetales for its Healing Wish, Encore, and speed really addressing the core issues that people have with sun? The main issue that the people who want it banned seem to have is the power of Slither Wing, Harc, and Venusaur under sun. Banning Ninetales simply does not make these things go away and If I asked someone which they think is more of a problem, I think they would answer with the latter. Some sun teams already use Torkoal and it has the great benefit of not letting Tyranitar in freely at all. These teams would be totally unaffected by a Ninetales ban. I think if sun were truly problematic then banning Heat Rock or Drought would make the most sense by far. I am yet to be convinced of two things, that sun is broken, and if it was, are Ninetales's tools really the core issue with sun?

As for the beneficiaries of sun themselves, mainly Venusaur, Harc, and Slither Wing. I don't think the first is really much of a problem at all. Venusaur needs a Growth boost to OHKO a lot of the tier and it is possible to pressure Venusaur and prevent it from getting the boost or at least damage it if it does. Even if it does boost, there are still Pokemon that can take a hit from Venusaur like Mandibuzz and Heatran if you terastallize it or have Air Balloon. I think Harc and Slither Wing are the closest things to problems that sun has, and more specifically the latter. They can run different sets on sun but I think the most potent are Choice Scarf for both and also Choice Band for Harc. Now, if Harc or Slither is scarfed, it will not quite have the power to OHKO Fire resists like Latios and Hydreigon and if they are not Scarfed then outspeeding them can become viable counterplay. Now, Slither Wing can also do Flame Charge things to remedy its speed and it's a very potent set but such a set exists even outside of sun and you do need counterplay to it regardless of sun. I think Flame Charge Slither Wing is a bit unhealthy and I would not mind if Slither Wing did end up leaving the tier but I would not ban it either personally as it has coverage issues and can be dealt with via terastallization, priority, and faster scarfers.

Many Pokemon can be used to check sun in some capacity. Latios, Tyranitar, Heatran, Hydreigon, Hippowdon, Skeledirge, Talonflame, Toxapex, Tera Dragon or Water on bulky Pokemon, priority, Gardevoir and probably other options I'm missing are all counterplay to sun in some capacity. There are a lot of good Pokemon in the tier that you would already be using that will naturally check something that sun uses. Latios and Hydreigon tend to be difficult for sun teams to switch into and answer. Tyranitar, Heatran, Hippowdon, and Skeledirge can help deal with the sun Pokemon. Talonflame checks Slither Wing well, Toxapex can slow down the sun sweepers and scout strong attacks. and if you really need another fire resist on your team terastallization gives an easy highly flexible way to make anything a Fire resist. I honestly don't think sun teams are even particularly good in UU given how they struggle with a lot of common Pokemon.

Tldr, I think the tier has enough tools for sun and that banning Ninetales does not address the core problems that people have with it.

Click to collapse...

as for your first argument i can say i have won enough endgames by ninetales healing wish that i think "it is" definetly the reason why sun is over the edge. i have encored many pokemon using a setup move that would outright sweep me (but encore i agree is not that broken). torkoal being slow, having no special defense and support moves only make it a sun setter which cant stay on the field for any other reasons that ninetales does and not for the bullshittery ninetales provides.

the argument saying that torkoal just predicts a ttar switch and presses it is niche, and what if their sand setter is hippo. and ngl idk which teams you're saying but i never saw a single torkoal sun in 4 months.

i do beleive :slither_wing: and :venusaur: are good abusers of sun but its not like you cant ever beat them in any case. again the endgame ninetales is gonna healing wish those and you gotta deal with them.

the argument venusaur cant do anything without growth boost is fine but it gets many opportunities to do so

vs your keldeo(i find it as a common entry point when it kos my fire types), greninja or any defensive mon it pretty easy to setup one and get out of control.
also who said you need a growth boost to deal significant damage just use tera fire to vaporize switchins in two turns.

:talonflame: 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fire Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Talonflame in Sun: 181-213 (50.4 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
:mandibuzz: 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fire Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Mandibuzz in Sun: 199-235 (46.9 - 55.4%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO
:hydreigon:
252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fire Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Hydreigon in Sun: 144-170 (44.3 - 52.3%) -- 75.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (this mon gets railed by slither anyways)
:latios: 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fire Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Latios in Sun: 121-144 (40.1 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (dying after sludge bomb next)

:mandibuzz: +2
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Tera Fire Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Mandibuzz in Sun: 398-469 (93.8 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

(foul play does 60%) which is not ko-ing you

air balloon tran is definetly a counter.

harc is kinda a mid sun abuser at best it just dies to rocks and easy to revenge kill and the revengers it invites kinda trade good vs sun. now i know you will be thinking that torkoal has spin it would mame harc better but torkoal doesnt have the capacity to say in on most rockers and expect sun gaming for more than 16 turns.

im actually also a beleiver :slither_wing: is busted because of the variety it runs but my feelings are kinda like i dont want sun to just die like veil did.

as for argument 3 there is very little counterplay like they trade for 1 of your sun abusers and weaken a second one, then ninetales will just come up heal them up
now you gotta deal with it again.

it seems you have not seen sun in tour play and mostly seen it on ladder well ngl uu ladder is kinda dead and there are not many high iq good plays being made there either.

end note: this is a rant that i want healing wish banned on sun.

 

[Lycopoky]

and ngl idk which teams you're saying but i never saw a single torkoal sun in 4 months.

Click to collapse...

Well I may or may not have tested Torkoal on the ladder...

Anyway, I hit requirements for the second time in UU! As for the teams I used, here they are:

Torkoal Sun :torkoal: :mandibuzz: :slither wing: :venusaur: :heatran: :latios: https://pokepast.es/1fd1e34d1aac2ae6
Sand Hazard Stack :excadrill: :tyranitar: :skarmory: :sinistcha: :keldeo: :thundurus-therian: https://pokepast.es/850fa3d19ad8f349
Psychic Terrain HO :indeedee: :conkeldurr: :hawlucha: :excadrill: :haxorus: :serperior: https://pokepast.es/bb91e382d45e0101

Ninetales' great speed + healing wish + encore is obviously a fantastic combination for offensive teams, and Overheat in the Sun is a powerful move as well, not to mention Scorching Sands and Solar Beam are not bad coverage moves as well (though I think Scorching Sands is better because of Heatran). Slither Wing, H-Arc, Venusaur, H-Lilli and Heatran all benefit from these utility options quite a lot including non-Sun abusers like Excadrill and Latios. Because of this Torkoal is worse overall, even though Torkoal does provide Rapid Spin (though Rocks weakness limits this role), Stealth Rocks and great physical bulk along with Body Press to hit Tyranitar and Heatran, its horrible speed and low special bulk make it pretty vulnerable to many special attackers and be a momentum sink, which is not good for a team that wants to be as offensive as Sun.

Not to mention, Sun abusers are all quite strong. H-Arc and Slither Wing in the Sun are very powerful attackers, Venusaur and H-Lilligant are very fast setup sweepers (and I enjoyed using 4attacks Venusaur as well for its great coverage), Heatran with Magma Storm in the Sun is also very difficult to switch into due to its raw power and chip.

There is counterplay to Sun: Sand setters (Tyranitar and Hippowdon), offensive Fire types (Heatran, Dirge and H-Arc because they are much harder to switch into due to their boosted moves), Keldeo (arguably since it beats H-Arc, Heatran and Ninetales), Toxapex and Slowking in spite of their Water-type, opposing Sun abusers can also be a problem since you give them more turns to sweep without needing their own setter, hell Latios can also be hard for Sun to switch into in my experience since it often lacks a bulky Pokemon that can reliably handle it defensively.
Sure, Sun has answers to all of these, but they are all threats that Sun will need to address. There's plenty of counterplay to Sun whether it actually beats the setters or abusers. And let's not forget it often has a Stealth Rock weakness because Ninetales and H-Arc are often used without Heavy-Duty Boots, and HDB as a whole doesn't seem to be very common on Sun teams (though I could be wrong on this).

And I want to bring up that Sun can be limited when it comes to what it can use. You need a setter (obviously), Slither Wing (imo), a Chlorophyll sweeper, and a hazard remover, and often I see another Fire type to take advantage of the Sun. Thats 4-5 slots spent to take advantage of the Sun and have a way to deal with the entry hazards problem. Sure, there's variety in some of these roles (removal can be Exca, Donphan or Mandibuzz; Fire types can be Heatran, H-Arc and Talonflame) though this makes Sun not very flexible as an archetype.

With these thoughts, I think I will vote DNB but my mind can easily change. While it is a pretty powerful archetype it does have a lot of generally good Pokemon that can help beat Sun and its not a flexible archetype that can run many Pokemon, so you can expect to face similar Sun teams. Though back to what I will vote, I have very mixed thoughts so there's no guarantee I will actually vote DNB, its just how i'm feeling at the moment.

 

[Django]

Got reqs with Torkoal sun: :torkoal: - :mandibuzz: - :heatran: - :venusaur: - :arcanine-hisui: - :slither-wing:

Not too sure what this proves but I found it interesting to play the games with Torkoal instead of Ninetales. I think there are some interesting advantages Torkoal actually has:

• Much much better Lokix check
• Slow, so it wins weather wars T1
• Extra removal which doesn't get used that often but is still nice
• Body Press to hit TTar and Heatran as they switch in
• Stealth Rock which means you free up more space elsewhere in the team
• Tera Ground makes it a viable Tyranitar and Arcanine switch later in the game

Having this much role compression allows you to fit Trapper Heatran onto the team who is honestly stupid on sun. Trapping and killing common Fire switches / Sun checks like Tyranitar, Toxapex, Rotom-Wash, Slowking, Skeledirge is amazing, while it takes huge chunks out of Latios and Keldeo. It's basically the perfect addition to Sun compared to previous metagames.

I also found this reqs run extremely braindead. Most games were just: Lead Torkoal, get rocks if the opp leads badly, if not just pivot with eject Mandibuzz, then choose a breaker and start winning. Heatran is usually the route, while Arcanine / Venu / Slither all are options as well depending on the opposing team. There was very little decision making on my part and very little agency from most opponents. Even teams that are set up to beat this style (Tyranitar / Exca / Scarf Garde / Mandibuzz) do not have good matchups and are one bad turn away from losing.

Even though this team didn't have Ninetales I am still voting Ban. It's a step in the right direction and the right first step according to the tiering policy, but I worry that the style is simply too diverse and has too many options to continue to be reasonable even after a Ninetales ban. But we can address that further down the line if needed.

 

[olivia]

got reqs. done a p sizable post here that i will try not to rehash

used a mix of torkoal sun, ninetales sun, and comfort for this run. going to vote ban, as for why? my reasons have shifted a tiny bit since my original post but not much

is sun broken?
depends how you look at it. is it this all encompassing game warping archetype that wins automatically on preview? no. very much not. however in my experience of actually playing it the vast vast majority of games felt completely in my control and that they were mine to lose. the games i lost usually stemmed from either running into a full c-team, a tech i didn't anticipate, and missing head smash. ignoring the c-team which i dont think is realistic to expect everyone to load all the time to not lose to sun, a lot of the techs i ran into were your typical ladder zaniness of which not a lot is actually tour bringable, and even in those cases i felt i just had way too much control on the outcome of every game for a playstyle which is not difficult to play.


is a ninetales ban the answer?
uhh tough one. i think no. but i also think it's a start and i think we should not let perfect get in the way of good. there is no perfect solution to sun nor is there a perfect solution to the metagame at the moment. banning ninetales would not be a negative thing to me at the moment, the wait and see camp want scl data before acting. banning ninetales gets them better data than doing nothing does - if sun is still a problem in scl with torkoal then you know the issue isn't the setter and you've got a much clearer case for going after drought or slither or even making a case for heat rock. if it isn't a problem then we've solved it with the smallest possible action. either way you learn more than you would from another month of nothing


is sun consistent?
in the original thread i stated that i didn't think tyranitar and heatran falling were sufficient for nerfing sun. with regards to tyranitar i uphold that opinion. with regards to heatran i am conflicted. a specific structure i ran into a lot - hippowdon + flash fire balloon heatran - was incredibly irritating to approach as the sun player. in that vein i think heatran has merit as an answer to sun albeit not a perfect one. it is also just incredibly strong on sun though. solar beam explodes things, there already aren't a lot of magma switch ins in the tier and those that can either explode to solar beam or lose to taunt. heatran is both a pro and a con for sun and when your best answer is also one of their best breakers i dont think that makes for really consistent counterplay.

sun at the moment feels like an incredibly high variance archetype where a lot of the sun players play hinges on landing inaccurate moves like head smash and magma storm. it can be argued that this is a balancing factor for it and while i do agree i don't think competitively speaking it is something we should be promoting as a premier structure in the tier. games being decided on whether the number generator decides if you missed or not is not something we should be striving towards.


is ninetales ban not enough?
torkoal is fine as a setter. it's honestly pretty good, as people have argued above. i like torkoal. it makes sun feel a lot more honest as there is a lot less room for error without a fast encore and hwish bot in the back. sun is still really strong with this guy as a setter so it would attain a happy middle ground for those that do not think sun is an issue at present. a ninetales ban would serve more as a balance tag rather than a sizable nerf. i think this is fine as a start to then see how we feel middle of scl.

as django said above there is almost endless room for customisation on the sun builder's end and there is just so many things to account for in the builder. a lot of the techs i encountered usually only patched one specific aspect of sun, i.e. trace garde countering chloro but then you can just run sun without chloro, hippo countering sun but getting trapped by balloon heatran and dying, slowking just being worthless dogshit, the list goes on.


is sun used too much/too little for action?
some of the back and forth in this thread has centred on whether sun has actually been seen all that much on ladder. i would caution everyone from using anecdotal evidence from ladder with regards to its place in the meta. ladder is its own thing and with the suspect there has been an explosion in both people using sun and people c-teaming sun. a few weeks from now i think neither will feel as present. sun is always something that shows up occasionally on ladder in my experience and thats about where it should be. i'd say on my run of about 40 games here 9 or 10 featured opposing sun which felt like a lot.


the other elephant in the room - slither wing.
this guy is just really really good. it's still rancid on veil. it's super rancid on sun. its utility/pivot sets are great. it does absolutely everything and feels like it potentially does too much. i'm still quite open to a suspect on this guy down the line if ninetales ban isnt enough.


oh my god olivia shut the fuck up please
ok here's the sparknotes. sun isnt broken but it's also not healthy. the counterplay is patchy. games are swingy and sometimes reliant on rng. the sun player has way too much agency for little work. ninetales is a small nerf that also gives us levers we can pull down the line should they be needed. ban

 

[zugubu royale]

Managed to get reqs using stall at first and then bulky offense 1300 onwards.

Faced sun like 4 times, was not really problematic, granted I did have good counterplay for it. Had major problems vs latios, no clue how this menace is still running free in uu. If people used the specs set more instead of trying to cheese a win with tera steel cm set it would be even worse, the mon just spdef drops all its counterplay to oblivion. I will be voting no ban, every lower tier is very much equipped to deal with sun, just to name a few:
uu -> ttar, tran, dirge, slowking
ru -> gard, entei
nu -> never seen it (might be bad?), goodra and para spam sounds like a pain though
pu -> alolan ninetales, snorlax

I also very much dislike that this suspect alone gets to decide 4 other tiers stances on sun without giving them any say on the matter.

 

[olivia]

I also very much dislike that this suspect alone gets to decide 4 other tiers stances on sun without giving them any say on the matter.

Click to collapse...

do the other 4 tiers not have torkoal? last i checked brodie was zu

 

[Django]

do the other 4 tiers not have torkoal? last i checked brodie was zu

Click to collapse...

Drought is banned in NU

 

[bungeegum_420]

I generally prefer more bans and I do find the reasons to ban Ninetales compelling, but from my experience while laddering now and ladder in in the past[post manaphy ban] I've had more success and fun facing sun than while using sun, while this isn't a sufficient argument as individual play style can affect this, and the fact that I probably faced worse players who used sun, I think it's a bit too early to have anything banned for enabling sun.
The manaphy ban has freed the builder quite a bit in terms of constraints, I think more constraints being gone could be sufficient to relieve the builder sufficiently to not have to specifically prep for sun. And in general, playing with sun imo needs more skill than many other playstyles.

EDIT: it was too short so I added a bit
Overall,
DNB

 

[TheShowdownHero]

If it gets banned,does that mean it would go from ZU to UUBL?

 

[NDK]

If it gets banned,does that mean it would go from ZU to UUBL?

Click to collapse...

It would, this is somewhat similar to the Arctozolt ban in SS UU where it went from PU to UUBL

 

[TheShowdownHero]

It would, this is somewhat similar to the Arctizolt ban in SS UU where it went from PU to UUBL

Click to collapse...

Thank you,My apologies as I don't really know these sort of things.

 

[babymariofan563]

This mon has ZERO reason to be banned, and if we do its because of a lack of skill.

 

[olivia]

This mon has ZERO reason to be banned, and if we do its because of a lack of skill.

Click to collapse...

Can you elaborate as to why?

 

[samohi0]

Can you elaborate as to why?

Click to collapse...

Not op but. It’s weak, can’t run bulk because it’s needs its moderate speed, lacks a pivot move, can’t set or remove rocks, sets your team at a disadvantage because you have to run ninetales instead of a uu pokemon.

Its only role is to set sun and its only niche over the other sun setter is it can kill itself.

can you elaborate as to why ninetales specifically is so busted? and how removal of ninetales would improve the tier.